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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.
N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
N. Rodgers: You know what? I'm exceptionally good today. Do you know why I'm exceptionally? Never mind. Sorry. How are you? I do have parents. I wasn't just raised by wolves in the wilderness.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm doing fine. I was just like, Nia is off to the races even before we do our usual formal greetings.
N. Rodgers: That's right. I'm interested. Because we're talking today about another woman in modern American politics. This is another one of those stories behind the names.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Episode. This is Condaleeza Rice. Condaleeza Rice, I know her mostly for her Secretary of State turn and the level of national security that she was involved in. She knew all the players and all the stuff in the early 2000s.
J. Aughenbaugh: After the 9/11 attacks, she played a very prominent role in the porch 43 administration. That alone would be reason enough to go ahead and do an episode about her.
N. Rodgers: But this whole thing that you did all these notes. She's this whole career that's the stellar, there's nothing she does where she's bad at it. Yeah. I need to know that she's bad at something, Aughie. I need to know that she's got dust on her books or there's something where you're like, she's not perfect.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, I can share this with you. I was only going to bring this up tangentially, but she's an avid golfer, but she's not good at it.
N. Rodgers: Okay. Sadly, that makes me very happy. I like that she's really into a sport that she's not good at. I'm really into hockey and I can barely stand up on skates.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, the number of times off-recording, you made reference to the Detroit Red Wings. I was just like, The Wings, and you knew where they used to play?
N. Rodgers: Oh, yeah. The Joe.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, the Joe Louis Arena, I was just like, How do you know this? You're from North Carolina for goodness sakes. But Condaleeza Rice was one of the first females to get membership at the Augusta golf course where the Masters has played.
N. Rodgers: Side note, as an African American woman, that had to be a whole thing.
J. Aughenbaugh: It was a whole thing. But by all accounts, and she's even joked about this. She loves the game is not very good at it.
N. Rodgers: Okay, that makes me feel better. I'm sorry because she's great at lots of stuff. We're about to hear about how awesome she is at a whole bunch of stuff. It's nice for me to know in the back of my head, but she can't play golf and loves it.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's the subject of previous story behind the name episode Liddy Dole, right? I mean, Liddy Dole was the president of student organizations, when she was a toddler for goodness sake. I'm like, who does this.
N. Rodgers: But she blew the presidential bid. There's always something.
J. Aughenbaugh: I was fighting naps when Liddy Dole was creating bird clubs. I'm like, really? Thanks, overachiever. Condaleeza Rice.
N. Rodgers: Who goes by Condi.
J. Aughenbaugh: Goes by Condi.
N. Rodgers: We're not just making that up.
J. Aughenbaugh: No. A whole bunch of people referred to her by her nickname was born in November of 1954, as Nia did point out, she served as the 66th US Secretary of State 2005-2009. She was our 19th National Security Advisor. For those of you who don't know, National Security Advisors is basically a position that was created post World War II. So that's the reason why we don't have as many National Security Advisors as we do Secretaries of State. She since 2020, has served as the director of the rather prestigious Stanford University Hoover Institution. If you're not into American academics, the Hoover Institution is one of the most prominent think tanks. Typically of the conservative libertarian bent, but one of the most prestigious think tanks.
N. Rodgers: Prestigious and storied. If you say somebody works at the Hoover Institution, most other people in the room will go, Oh. Because that person's got chops.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, I got to admit if the Hoover Institute ever reached out to me, Nia, I would be taking a leave of absence from this podcast that I would hope you would understand.
N. Rodgers: I would totally understand. I would resent if you did not tell me how fabulous it was all the time. But the other thing is that what Aughie has not mentioned is that she's an African American woman. That makes a big deal, she's the first female African American Secretary of State.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, because the first female Secretary of State is going to be the subject of another one of our story behind the name. That would be who?
N. Rodgers: Madeleine Albright.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. We're going to be-
N. Rodgers: Fabo. All these women are fabulous. She's the first woman of any race to serve as the National Security Advisor. I know that a lot of people think that the current, now I've lost her name. Tulsi Gabbard .
J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, yes.
N. Rodgers: She's the first woman, but she is not. Condaleeza Rice was long before Tulsi Gabbard.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Now, what's also interesting was until Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, and her predecessor Colin Powell. She at one point was the highest ranking woman in the history of the United States in the presidential line of succession, because-
N. Rodgers: Federal executive because it's the president then the vice president in the Speaker of the House and then the Secretary of State?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Now, like our previous subject, Liddy Dole, Condaleeza Rice was also born in the American South, Birmingham, Alabama, and this was when the South was still racially segregated.
N. Rodgers: Yeah. Remember, Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 is the year she was born. Sorry. Segregation takes a long time to die. Because the court does not give it a mandate and you have 12 months to fix this. They're like, it's something about timely, you can tell us what the actual words are in the ruling.
J. Aughenbaugh: Oh, yeah, Brown v. Board too, 1955, All Deliberate Speed.
N. Rodgers: All Deliberate Speed, whatever the heck that means. In the South, All Deliberate Speed could mean 40 years from now because that's how Southerners work. It becomes an issue later. Even though that has happened the year she's born, it's not in effect and it's not going to be in effect for quite a while.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. So she was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the only child of Angelina, who was a high school this fascinated me. High school science music and oratory teacher.
N. Rodgers: That sets her up for-
J. Aughenbaugh: Her father was John Wesley Rice, who was a high school guidance counselor, a Presbyterian minister.
N. Rodgers: Well, what could he be if his name was John Wesley?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Isn't that? Wait. Am I remembering that correctly?
J. Aughenbaugh: You are. Nia is furiously looking this up, but her father also for a period of time, was the dean of students at Stillman College, which is an historically Black college in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
N. Rodgers: John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist.
J. Aughenbaugh: Methodist Church.
N. Rodgers: So he went slightly astray being a Presbyterian minister with his name.
J. Aughenbaugh: Now, if you want to know where her name comes from.
N. Rodgers: But dean of students at Stillman. So that's setting a high. They both set a really high academic bar for their kid.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, she wasn't going to go ahead and be a mediocre student, folks
N. Rodgers: Not with those parents.
J. Aughenbaugh: No. Her name, Condaleeza is derived from a music term, which is con dolcezza, which is Italian for sweetly softly.
N. Rodgers: Not sure that I've ever seen her be sweetly soft, but because she's pretty hardcore. But then again, in her jobs, she couldn't be warm fuzzy. She had to be don't mess with us. We will come over there and knock you down.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, listeners, if you ever pull up a video where she was speaking.
N. Rodgers: She's a very firm speaker.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. It's obvious she knows her stuff. She pretty much expected listeners to go with her.
N. Rodgers: If you've ever seen her be questioned, you guys if you ever want to see somebody be questioned by Congress, she is the very definition of unflappable. She cannot be flapped. She's like, the reason that you think that is because you're an idiot. Moving on, I'm like, dang, man, that woman gives no quarter. Now that I know that her mom was an oratory teacher, I'm sure part of that is that she was trained to don't speak unless you are prepared to control the speech.
J. Aughenbaugh: Pronounce your words, specifically with intent.
N. Rodgers: Speak with intent.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Now, what's fascinating and I actually looked this up and I watched this episode, Nia. There's a PBS episode Finding Your Roots.
N. Rodgers: Oh, the Show Finding Your Roots. I love that show.
J. Aughenbaugh: With Dr. Gates, right?
N. Rodgers: Yes. People find out all kinds of things that they didn't expect.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Her ancestry is 51% African, 40%, European, and 9% Asian or Native American. Her maternal DNA is traced back to the Takar people of Cameroon. Yes. But she grew up in the Titusville neighborhood of Birmingham. Then when her dad became the Dean of Students at Stillman, they moved to Tuscaloosa. But this is Alabama in the Jim Crow South. This was before desegregation, etc. The next point, Nia, you're going to be like, Good Lord, these overachieving kids she began to learn French music, figure skating, and ballet at the age of three.
N. Rodgers: Yeah, if you thought you were overscheduled as a child listeners, you have never met Condaleeza Rice who apparently had to study all the things.
J. Aughenbaugh: She began to take piano lessons with the goal of becoming a concert pianist at the age of 15. She graduated from high school when she was 16, Nia. Now, in '67, okay, when she was 13-years-old, her family moved to Denver, Colorado. She attended St. Mary's Academy, which was an all girls Catholic School. Like I just mentioned, she graduated at 16, stayed at home, by and large, and attended the University of Denver where her father was working at the time.
N. Rodgers: He just moved to another dean position. Okay.
J. Aughenbaugh: She initially majored in music and after her sophomore year, she went to a music festival and after the competition, she concluded that she probably was not going to be as good or as successful as some of the other students at the festival. She changed her major after taking a course with a well known international politics scholar by the name of Josef Korbel. Listeners, I'm going to want you to remember that name because in our next episode, we're going to make reference to Josef Korbel because Josef Korbel was the father of Madeleine Albright.
N. Rodgers: Yeah, Madeleine Korbel Albright.
J. Aughenbaugh: Right. That's right. Korbel becomes a central figure in Condi Rice's early academic career because it was taking that class that led her to study political science. She graduated from the University of Denver in three years.
N. Rodgers: With her VA at 19.
J. Aughenbaugh: At 19.
N. Rodgers: She can't drink. But she can graduate from college not only does she graduate from college at 19, she graduates [inaudible]
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. She's not struggling, folks.
N. Rodgers: Yeah. She's at the top. You know what? It's probably really good for politics that she realized she wasn't going to be a classical pianist. Because she could have gone on to be a concert pianist of average measure or she could have gone on to be the Secretary of State.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: You know what I mean? Good choice, Condi. You've chosen well to pick.
J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, it's like the conversation I had with my dissertation advisor, God bless John Rohr. John Rohr and I both were huge baseball fans, and he said, Aughe, did you ever think about having a career in Major League baseball? I said, yeah, but I recognized in high school that I couldn't hit a curveball. He goes, maybe that was a good thing. I looked at him like, you do know you're talking about my dream. That's a dream crushed. He goes, no, now you get to go and be a PhD and teach young minds. I'm like, nice spin there, dude, well done. But here's the other thing about Condi Rice. She finishes her undergrad at 19. One year later, she earns her masters in political science at Notre Dame.
N. Rodgers: In a year at Notre Dame.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Not like a softball program where you could like, I just phoned it in and got. No.
J. Aughenbaugh: No.
N. Rodgers: She must have been taking 20 course hours a semester. Holy cow.
J. Aughenbaugh: And in the summers. Then she goes to work in the State Department as an intern in the Carter administration for the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, where she ends up studying Russian at Moscow State University in 1979, and interns with the RAND Corporation. The RAND Corporation is one of the most prominent think tanks in the United States since the 1950s.
N. Rodgers: Getting accepted there, even as an intern, is a big deal.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. She then, at 26, goes back to the University of Denver. Well, before she was 26, but at 26, she receives her PhD in political science. At 26, she has her PhD Studying at the aforementioned Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Her dissertation centered on military policy and politics in the communist state of Czechoslovakia. Are you kidding me? Who does that at 26?
N. Rodgers: That very Byzantine topic.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: The military policy and politics of Czechoslovakia, which, by the way, does not exist anymore.
J. Aughenbaugh: No.
N. Rodgers: I think Czechia and several other places are former Czechoslovakia. In case anybody's lost here, she's studying Eastern Europe at an extremely high level during what is the first blush ending of the Cold War.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: '80, '81. '82, '83, when she's doing that work.
J. Aughenbaugh: She wins a Ford Foundation Fellowship in Soviet Studies and International Security. She's one of four women, Janne Nolan, Cindy Roberts, Gloria Duffy, and Condi Rice studying international security at Stanford on fellowships at that time. This begins a lifelong, if you will, fascination, and just love of Northern California
N. Rodgers: Her lifelong commitment to Stanford.
J. Aughenbaugh: Stanford, yes.
N. Rodgers: Because doesn't she later serve on the board at Stanford? Anyway.
J. Aughenbaugh: She ends up becoming the provost and ends up turning around a huge budget deficit into a surplus. I'm like, of course, she does. Now, let's talk about her politics. Now, in our previous podcast episode, we talked about Liddy Dole who was a Democrat, then became a moderate Republican. Condoleezza Rice was a Democrat until 1982, but she changed her affiliation to the Republican Party, in large part, because she disagreed with the foreign policy of Democratic President Jimmy Carter and because of the influence of her father, who was a Republican. I'm not making this up, a Black Republican.
N. Rodgers: I love what she said at the 2000 Republican National Convention about that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. What did she say? What's the quote?
N. Rodgers: The quote is, quote, my father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow, Alabama, of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: For her, it was a matter of justice in her family.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Then you couple that with her work experience with the Carter administration, and this wasn't really a difficult transition for her.
N. Rodgers: I can see where if she had studied Eastern Europe-
J. Aughenbaugh: During the Cold War?
N. Rodgers: - during the Cold War, her feelings would be more conservative.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Nia, after she does the Ford Foundation Fellowship, what does she do then?
N. Rodgers: She goes off to be an assistant professor of political science at Stanford. I think that people don't realize how much, I'm going to take a second here and say something Aughe, I don't know if he's ever heard me say this about him. Political science professors, the really good ones like Aughe, are the people who open up political science to students who may not have been expecting to be interested in political science. Aughe teaches a class that is heavily students who that's not their major. They often change their major because of professors like Aughe. This happens in our political science department. It happens in a lot of political science departments. If you get the right professor who says, look, there's
this whole cool thing to study about why people do what they do and how people do what they do and what are the levers of power and where is your place and all that? They go, oh, and they get into it. I would be willing to bet she was that kind of professor. I'd be willing to bet that she was like you, that she opened people up to the idea of, this is a really interesting thing for me to study, for me to get into.
J. Aughenbaugh: To your point, I had professors like that at the University of Pittsburgh who were like, there's this arcane subject in political science. But I'm going to teach it in a way to where I hope you can go ahead and see how interesting and exciting it is. In many ways, that's what ends up turning me onto administrative law, which was I had professors who were just like, this is pretty fascinating stuff. If you keep an open mind, I want to share with you how it might be fascinating to you. Then when I can understand it and I can write about it and I can talk about it, and I'm like, this is pretty cool stuff.
N. Rodgers: I get the feeling she was that. She also was a specialist in the Soviet Union, which would have been intriguing to most people in that time period anyway because it was all falling apart and nobody knew really where things were going to go and what was going to happen. Gorbachev, tear down this wall and blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. I think that would have been a really great time to have a professor like her.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. What's also fascinating to me is it's during this period of time where she was an assistant professor. She gets promoted to associate in 1987. That's a pretty standard time frame, six years from assistant to associate. But she attends a meeting at Stanford in 1985, and the subject was arms control. kin the mid-1980s, this was a sore spot between the United States and the Soviet Union.
N. Rodgers: You put down your nuclear weapons. No, you put down your nuclear weapons. I'll put down mine if you put down yours. Nobody's moving. It's one of those things.
J. Aughenbaugh: She's at this meeting, and her lectures and her discussions drew the attention of an individual by the name of Brent Scowcroft. Now, on a previous podcast episode a couple years ago, we had a colleague on, Bill Newman, who talked about the Reagan Bush foreign policy, etc. Brent Scowcroft was an important figure as far back as the Ford presidency. Scowcroft takes note of the performance of this Stanford University, at the time, assistant professor. She's not yet been promoted.
N. Rodgers: Hang on. '54, '64, '74, '84. She's-
J. Aughenbaugh: Thirty-one-years-old.
N. Rodgers: No, she's less than that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, 31-years-old. She was born in '54, so she's barely 30-years-old. Right.
N. Rodgers: He's like, you want to be my Soviet Union expert?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. When Bush 41 gets elected and he names Scowcroft as his national security advisor, he asked Condoleezza Rice to become his Soviet expert on the United States National Security Council. According to Nicholas Barnes, who has written one of the most authoritative biographies of President Bush, President Bush was captivated by Rice and relied upon her extensively to guide his dealings with Mikhail Gorbachev, and then his successor, Boris Yeltsin. Again, she's what at this point? She's mid-30s?
N. Rodgers: Yeah, and she's got the presidential ear.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, the leader of the free world in his discussions with the leaders of the other hegemonic power of the Cold War is basically saying, if he says this, what should I say? She's the one who's saying, Mr. President, you should basically go ahead and say, let's get some vodka.
N. Rodgers: Thanks. Yeah, let's get some vodka if you're talking to Yeltsin. But what I love about this is her priorities. Because she's doing this job and then she's like, if I don't go back to Stanford, I'm going to be ineligible for tenure, and I need to think about my future, so I'm going to go back to Stanford. She's like, piece out kiddos, got to see you later, got to go back to Stanford to maintain my viability for tenure. I'm sure they were like, I'm sorry, what? Where are you going? You have been in the room with the two most powerful people in the world, the president of the Soviet Union and the president of the United States, and you're going back to Stanford to protect your tenure. I love that. I love the over achieveness of that. Yeah, but I got to make sure I'm still eligible for tenure.
J. Aughenbaugh: I can just imagine Scowcroft saying, well, write an excuse.
N. Rodgers: The president, you'll get a note from the president. She's like, yeah, no, sorry, I can't do it.
J. Aughenbaugh: She goes back to Stanford and then almost immediately develops a really great working relationship. She was taken under the wing by one of the most prominent Republican bureaucrats of the 1970s and '80s, George Shultz. Shultz, who had been the Secretary of State for Reagan for seven years. In the 1970s, he was the Secretary of the Treasury, I think, for Nixon and Ford. At the time, he was a fellow at the Hoover Institute. He had this luncheon club of intellectuals that met every few weeks to discuss foreign affairs. He invites Condi Rice.
N. Rodgers: Who's 37 at this point?
J. Aughenbaugh: Thirty-seven and a Black woman attending a lunch of old boys.
N. Rodgers: At Shultz's level.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: These are all board members of big corporations and intellectuals who work on foreign affairs and all that stuff. I'm like, man, woman is running in some serious circles.
J. Aughenbaugh: You want to talk about fighting above your weight. She's fighting above her weight, and she's landing haymakers.
N. Rodgers: She meets the president of Kazakhstan.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Schultz is on the board of the Chevron corporation. He gets her a spot on the board. She goes to Kazakhstan to talk about a $10 billion development project. She's 37 and she's talking about $10
billion projects. She so impresses the president of Kazakhstan that they name a supertanker after her the SS Condoleezza Rice.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Also during this period of time, in addition to serving on the boards of Chevron, she was on the boards of the Transamerica Corporation, which for those of you who don't know, big time, into banking and insurance. Hewlett-Packard.
N. Rodgers: If you have a printer, it's probably HP.
J. Aughenbaugh: HP. I'm like, are you kidding me?
N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie. How many boards are you on for corporations?
J. Aughenbaugh: None.
N. Rodgers: You're right, under achiever.
J. Aughenbaugh: Mr. Slothful over here. Then she's still at Stanford. She's on a search committee, to find the new president of Stanford. The committee picks Gerhard Casper, who at the time was the provost of the University of Chicago. These are the presidents and provosts of some of the leading educational institutions, not only the United States, but of the world. She's serving on search committees. She so impresses Gerhard Casper during this search process that in 1993, he appoints her Stanford's provost. For our non-academic listeners, the provost is the chief, budget, and academic officer of a university.
N. Rodgers: They never do that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Never.
N. Rodgers: They never just appoint somebody.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes and at the time, a Black female as a provost.
N. Rodgers: A young black female? She's less than 40.
J. Aughenbaugh: She's less than 40. She's 39-year-old.
N. Rodgers: She's 39-years-old.
J. Aughenbaugh: When they appointed her provost, and this comes with the position, she's granted tenure and becomes a full professor.
N. Rodgers: She doesn't have to worry about tenure anymore.
J. Aughenbaugh: She's a full professor at 40. Are you kidding me?
N. Rodgers: Full professor and tenured at 40.
J. Aughenbaugh: She was the first female, first African American, and the youngest provost in Stanford's history. She was appointed as a senior fellow of the Institute for International Studies and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution. You want to talk about having a good year? Come on now. In academic circles?
N. Rodgers: That is literally the top of the game. She's playing at the highest levels possible.
J. Aughenbaugh: You've hit a home run. You scored a Super Bowl winning touchdown.
N. Rodgers: You brought all four people in on your home run. You know what I mean? The bases were loaded.
J. Aughenbaugh: As provost, she was responsible for managing the university's multi-billion dollar budget. The school at the time was running a deficit of $20 million. Within two years, she had eliminated the budget deficit and the university had a record surplus of $14.5 million. That's a $34.5 million turnaround in two years.
N. Rodgers: What I love about that is that her critics at the time were like, it can't be done.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: She was like, I'm going to fix this in two years. They said, you cannot fix this in two years. Two years later, she was like, did I mention we have $14 million now? They were like, okay. I suspect that a huge number of people made early mistakes in meeting Condoleezza Rice in underestimating her.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: I'm like, well, you should never do that because this is not a person to be underestimated.
J. Aughenbaugh: Now, because we try to be balanced in our treatment of whatever subject we cover in a particular podcast episode, she did have some critics. She did reduce Stanford's use of affirmative action in making hire and promotion decisions, and she consolidated a number of academic centers on campus because she was not a really big fan of diversity politics. She wasn't a big fan of it.
N. Rodgers: Not super surprising given the current climate. But I want to talk about Condoleezza Rice's love life for a brief moment.
J. Aughenbaugh: Let's do that.
N. Rodgers: Condoleezza Rice is single. As far as far as I am aware, she has never been married.
J. Aughenbaugh: She's never been married.
N. Rodgers: As far as I'm aware, she has not been publicly liaisoned with anybody. That does not mean she has not had liaisons. But back in the day, when she was the, I can't remember if she was Secretary of State or if she was the National Security Advisor, when she was hanging out with Stephen Harper?
J. Aughenbaugh: This would have been when she was Secretary of State from 2005-2009.
N. Rodgers: Think of them as more or less equals in position, because he's the prime minister of Canada and she's Secretary of State of United States. He was caught in pictures being all googly eyed, talking to her. Now that I know more about her history, I'm like, I don't know that that was romantic on her side, so much as every person she's ever run into has probably eventually been googly eyed about her because she is an amazing human. Her ability to problem solve and just her sheer intellectual. Well, I'm going to finish college in three years, then I'm going to get a master's in a year. It's like, no wonder he was googly eyed over her.
J. Aughenbaugh: In my research, Nia, there were some critics who were just like, she owes so much of her career advancement to older White males. But as other commentators pointed out, if you were going to be operating at the highest levels of government in United States.
N. Rodgers: Especially at that time.
J. Aughenbaugh: In the late 1980s, early 1990s, but even in the first decade of this millennium. The people who will be making hiring decisions would be older White males.
N. Rodgers: Well, look at the current.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: The current administration is largely male dominant, not completely.
J. Aughenbaugh: But at no point either Bush 41 or Bush 43 referred to her by her race or her gender. It is noteworthy. They never said she is the most qualified female or African American female for the position. They were just like, she is, in the case of Bush 41-
N. Rodgers: The most qualified.
J. Aughenbaugh: A Soviet Union expert. Bush 43, this is a person who not only has the academic chops, but she has already served at the highest levels of the national security apparatus of the federal government. Why would I not want her?
N. Rodgers: She's already got all the clearances. She knows all the stuff. Why would you not want to engage her as much as you could?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. In many ways, I understand the criticism, particularly because, as you pointed out, Nia, she never got married. On the other hand, I'm like, I'm sorry, folks. If you're going to go ahead and say that the only reason why she got these positions is because of her race and/or her gender, then you're basically discounting a level of achievement at every stage of her life that is just truly exemplary. Come on now. You're graduating high school at 16, you're graduating college at 19. You have your master's in a year. You have your PhD, by the time you're 26.
N. Rodgers: You're a tenured provost at 39. Who does that? Another one of those instances where be careful when you say people have their position because of somebody else. Don't overlook the fact that these people are also pretty just by themselves, brilliant. She's one of those people.
J. Aughenbaugh: Now, so when Bush 43 gets elected, she gets brought into his administration. Again, first as National Security Advisor, and then she replaces Colin Powell as Secretary of State. After the 2009 presidential election, she returned to Stanford University as a political science professor, full professor, and she becomes a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Since 2020, she has been the director of the Hoover Institution.
N. Rodgers: She's more or less retired from public service in the government.
J. Aughenbaugh: Government public service.
N. Rodgers: She's now doing public service in the educational sector.
J. Aughenbaugh: By all accounts, and I've seen some recent interviews with her, she really enjoys her life at Stanford, at Hoover, and even she's a part owner of the Denver Broncos football team.
N. Rodgers: A bad golfer. She's got multitives.
J. Aughenbaugh: She loves sports, and Nia knows this. Longtime listeners know this. I am an avid sports fan. Anybody who can go ahead and combine those interests, political science and sports. I'm like, you go. Just truly fan. One of the most important government officials of the United States-
N. Rodgers: In the modern era. I agree. In the post 9/11 world. Maybe she likes Stanford so much because it's way less tumultuous. During Bush 2, 43, that was a really tumultuous period in the world. Lots of war, lots of stress, lots of all kinds of it. Maybe she's like, the Hoover Institution.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, it's not surprising that she went back because she is an academic. She was never a hardcore politician. At no point did she even give any serious thought to running for political office. Mind you, the Republican Party, particularly during the Bush 43 administration, was just like, are you sure you don't want to run for office? She's like, no.
N. Rodgers: No, thanks. I don't want to go through a campaign.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, mad respect for her, for not wanting to go through a political campaign.
N. Rodgers: Well, and for recognizing that that's not where her talent lies. Running for office is not where her talent lies.
J. Aughenbaugh: Her talent has been in-
N. Rodgers: In that advisory capacity using her intellect to help presidents understand the lay of the land. That's enormously valuable. They need people like that who don't have an elective ego involved.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because at no point did Bush 41 or Bush 43, I can imagine, ever think she's doing this so that she can position herself to one day replace me. She's trying to give the best advice possible for the president of the United States. I know that within the current presidential administration, that doesn't seem to be the modus operandi.
N. Rodgers: Of many of the people? Yeah
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, Nia, as you pointed out, I could see Condi Rice going ahead and telling either Bush 41 or Bush 43, I think you're wrong, Mr. President.
N. Rodgers: My understanding of the situation is not what you're saying.
J. Aughenbaugh: My advice is we don't do X. But she would never go public with disagreement.
N. Rodgers: No.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's the other thing.
N. Rodgers: She seems very discreet.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Come on now. Think about how she's led her private life. I've seen interviews where they've broached talking about her private life, and she shuts them down. I'm like, wow. That's impossible.
N. Rodgers: Good for her. She's got a private life and she wants to keep it private.
J. Aughenbaugh: But thank you, Nia. Listeners, in a future episode, we're going to be exploring another prominent talented woman in American government, Madeleine Albright.
N. Rodgers: Madeleine Albright. Look forward to that one
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Thank you, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Sure.
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